Trump says prosecutions are coming over the ‘rigged’ 2020 election

President Donald Trump hinted Wednesday that people would soon be prosecuted over their roles in the 2020 election, which he still falsely claims was ‘rigged.’ Trump was addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, when he made the stunning statement in an off-script moment. The president was once again claiming that the war in Ukraine would have never started if he had remained in office after his first term. Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops to invade Ukraine in February 2022, a year and a month into President Joe Biden’s term in office.

‘And it wouldn’t have started if the 2020 U.S. presidential election weren’t rigged,’ Trump told the crowd. ‘It was a rigged election.’ ‘Everybody now knows that. They found out. People will soon be prosecuted for what they did,’ he continued. ‘That’s probably breaking news, but it should be – it was a rigged election, can’t have rigged elections,’ Trump added. Trump has long pushed that he lost the 2020 election due to widespread voter fraud, instead of voters’ discontent over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Biden was able to flip back the blue wall of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan that Trump had won in 2016 over Democrat Hillary Clinton and add several traditionally red states, including Arizona and Georgia, to his column. Despite the president’s historic political comeback in the 2024 election, beating Biden’s No. 2, Vice President Kamala Harris, to become only the second president in history to win non-consecutive terms, Trump continues to bring up the 2020 election burn. Some of the top voices in the MAGA movement have wanted to see Attorney General Pam Bondi look more into the 2020 race.

‘Folks are desperate for action and just haven’t seen it,’ Steve Bannon, Trump’s former White House chief strategist, told the Wall Street Journal in an interview earlier this month. Bannon said the president’s supporters have wanted to see movement on cases related to the 2020 election and also the 2016 election related to the Russia probe. It’s unclear who would be indicted in a 2020 election case. In the aftermath of the election, Trump and his allies filed 62 cases contesting the election results, with nearly all dismissed over a lack of standing or evidence.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overruled one initial Trump campaign win, which dealt with whether first-time voters could be asked for photo identification if they wanted to ‘cure’ their mail-in ballots. At the same time, several Trump-aligned officials, including his personal lawyer, former New York City Mayor, have gotten in legal trouble over their roles in trying to overturn Biden’s win. Last April, Giuliani, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and other Republican officials who signed a document submitted to Congress falsely saying Trump won the election were indicted in Arizona.

There were also droves of prosecutions related to January 6. Trump was impeached for a second time, after leaving office, for inciting an insurrection on January 6, 2021. He was acquitted in the Republican-led U.S. Senate. His rhetoric at a ‘stop the steal’ rally at the Ellipse led to thousands of Trump supporters ransacking the U.S. Capitol. In the years following the Capitol attack, more than 1,500 rioters were charged with crimes, but Trump pardoned them all shortly after taking office for a second time last year.